“Dammit.” Colton brushed his hand through his already tumbled hair. “This is a fucked up mess.”
Vida silently agreed with him.
Standing up from the table, he wiped the spilt coffee from the table. “Get dressed; we’re going out.”
“Where to?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sick of being cooped up. I need some fresh air and, since I can’t leave you alone, that means you’re coming with me.”
Vida started to protest, but she hadn’t had a free day in so long she had forgotten what it was like simply to go out and have fun. Closing down her computer, she went into the bathroom and changed into jeans and a long sleeved shirt. Colton had dressed and was sitting on the chair in the living room waiting for her.
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
It was early afternoon, so not many people were out on the roads. He drove them out of the city where the light traffic dwindled down until they only passed a car every so often. The scenery lulled Vida into forgetting her problems; the drawback was it increased her awareness of Colton. Sitting against his back with her thighs so close had her wanting things her mind refused to acknowledge. Her body on the other hand had a mind of its own.
He handled the bike expertly, making Vida wonder how he had learned to ride the bike so well in the city.
Eventually, they rode through a small town where Colton stopped for gas. It was next door to a restaurant where they went through the drive- thru. Vida sat on the bike as Colton stood next to it, eating their food. When they finished, Colton drove down a small, paved road on a large piece of land. They found a farmers’ market, which had been set up on the side of the road.
“Let’s check it out,” Colton said suddenly.
Vida agreed and they spent an amusing couple of hours going to the various booths. Vida bought some fruit while Colton purchased drinks and a couple of sandwiches. Finding a spot on the ground away from the booths, they ate quietly as they watched the customers shop.
“I love being out of the city,” Vida said, looking at the countryside surrounding them.
Colton paused at eating his sandwich. It was the first thing Vida had shared about herself. The woman kept herself so contained, you never knew what she was thinking.
“You don’t like the city?”
“I hate it. I like being out in open spaces. The idea of having just a few neighbors and having a small town sense of community where they actually care about one another appeals to me.”
“But you have that in the city. Your relationship with Sawyer proves that,” Colton argued.
Vida shook her head. “Sawyer, Callie and I all lived on the fifth floor in a low income housing building. Sawyer’s mother would babysit Callie and me while my mom worked or Callie’s was busy. But none of them shared anything about their lives. The apartment building was filled with people who weren’t even supposed to be living there. Everyone minded their own business because they didn’t want anyone sticking their nose into theirs or the possibility of getting evicted.”
There was definitely no sense of community where she had grown up. Vida watched the people at the farmers’ market greet each other, standing and talking amongst themselves before continuing with their shopping.
“I see your point.” Colton recognized that she wanted a tight community to replace her lack of family until she had one of her own. Colton didn’t know why that thought bothered him, only that it did.
Her dark hair was pulled back, showing her high cheekbones and green eyes. Her red lips bit into a piece of melon that had juice running down her chin. Giving her a napkin, he watched as she wiped away the juice from her face and licked her lips to catch the stray droplets. Her unconscious sensuality hardened his cock. Colton shifted on the hard ground.
Taking an apple for himself, he watched her pick up another piece of melon and had to force his attention back to what she was saying.
“In a town like this, a child like Callie would never have suffered. A neighbor, school or friend would have reported her mother. She might still be alive if she hadn’t had the misfortune to live where she did.”
“You don’t know that, Vida. Maybe she would still be alive or maybe something else could have killed her. She might have died some other way and never known what it was like to have such wonderful friends as you or Sawyer.”
“She was so special, Colton. Her mother would drop her off as often as Sawyer’s mother would take her during the day. All three of us didn’t realize we weren’t sisters until we were about five-years-old; we spent so much time together. Especially Sawyer and me because our mothers were friends and they would swap out babysitting. Brenda, that bitch, would only let Sawyer’s mom babysit when she was coming off her high. She wanted Callie by her side all the time, even when she was...” Her voice broke off.
“My mom and Sawyer’s mom both reported her to social services when the bruises became worse, but they always gave her back to that bitch, then she started threatening our moms. She held a knife to my mom one night when she tried to talk to her. She even threatened Sawyer and me if they didn’t mind their own business.”
“Vida,” Colton tried to stop her, knowing where this story ended, seeing no need for her to take this trip down memory lane. Goldie had told him about Callie’s mother. He had wanted to have a talk with her himself, but Goldie had been terrified that the woman would disappear with Callie.
She continued on, lost in her own story, “The first time Sawyer and I saw Marshall, he scared us; he was so frightening.” Vida could still see the white haired, muscular man who had been as large as a giant to the small children they were then.
“He scared me, too, and I wasn’t a little girl.” Colton tried again to regain her attention unsuccessfully.
“The sad part is, I think he really cared for Callie; she gained weight and didn’t have as many bruises. Sawyer and I were happy that he’d moved in with her mom. Do you think he meant to hurt Callie when he killed Brenda?” Vida buried her face in her hands. “I still see her face every day, Colton, wishing I had smelled the smoke sooner, got to her door faster, knocked louder. There should have been something I could have done.”
“I heard about that fire, Vida. It was in all the papers and it was all anyone could talk about for weeks in the neighborhood. There was nothing you could have done. When Marshall caught Brenda in bed with another man, he went crazy and killed them both. Callie must have managed to escape out of the window because they found her body hiding in one of the vacant apartments. She was probably so scared from what she’d witnessed that she had run and hid, and was too frightened to come out when she heard the sirens.”
“She was only eight-years-old.”
“Sweetheart, you were only a year older. You did exactly what you were supposed to do. You tried to alert them then got outside with your mom. That was why you lived,” Colton tried to reason with her.
Vida came back to the present with her hand in Colton’s. Self-consciously, she pulled it away and began cleaning up the remains of their impromptu picnic.
They passed back through the booths as they left and a young girl with a woman standing by a cardboard box drew Vida’s attention. She paused and looked into the box where a reddish-blond ball of fluff stared back at her.
“Awe, isn’t it cute.” Vida bent down and petted the squirming puppy that promptly started smothering her in puppy kisses. Giggling, Vida stroked the curly soft fur. “Is it a girl or boy?”
“It’s a girl,” the little girl replied. “It’s the last one I have left. Mama wouldn’t let me name her cause we have to sell them, but I think she looks like a Chloe.”
The little girl cast her mother a sidelong look. Shaking her head at the little girl with a soft smile, the mother reached into the box and handed her the wiggling puppy. Burying her face in the soft puppy fur, this was what Vida wanted out of life, normalcy. It sounded boring, but Vida could easily see the love and happiness shining from the mother and ch
ild.
“I’m selling her for two hundred fifty dollars. She’s a malti-poo.” Vida stroked the soft fur one more time before regretfully giving it back.
“I wish I could buy her, but right now I don’t have a permanent home. It’s going to be a while before I can have a puppy.” Reluctantly, Vida gave the puppy back to the little girl, who took it back with a relieved smile.
“I wish you could have taken her. I can tell you two would have made a great match.” The woman smiled. Vida glanced down at the little girl who didn’t try to hide her joy at having her puppy back.
Vida said goodbye with a last look at the wiggling puppy in the little girl’s arms. Her stomach clenched as she tried to gather her emotions around her while they walked back to the bike. Colton stiffened as they drew closer, not understanding why until she saw two men touching his bike. One kicked the wheel while another messed with the handlebar.
“Get away from my ride,” Colton said as he moved toward the men.
“We’re just lookin’ at it.” The man had tobacco in his mouth, spitting a stream of juice near Colton’s foot. Vida assumed the man was an idiot until her gaze went to the side and saw another large man leaning against the side of an older model truck.
“Go find something else to look at, like your wife fucking your brother.”
The man cockily pulled up his saggy pants and raised his hands in the air.
“I don’t want no trouble. What make is it? You get plenty of pussy ridin’ on those nut busters? Been thinking of getting me one. If it gets me a piece of pussy that looks like her, I might need to buy one.”
“Shithead, you couldn’t afford what a bike like that costs, but you go ahead and buy one you can afford because a dumb fuck like you would be road kill in a hour.”